Page 25 of Not Your Ordinary Shifter

She finished her song, as Polly had stopped crying and had instead become engaged in winding her feet in her mother’s hair. Aubrine raised her head, sensing they had company, and I was so amazed at her beauty, I dropped back a bit.

“Welcome, Audrey!” the beautiful woman said. Her face was positively luminous. I thought of paintings of Renaissance madonnas I’d seen, but I remembered non as beautiful as Aubrine.

“King Marius told me you had joined our family, and I wanted to come and find you to welcome you, but Polly wouldn’t settle without a song.”

I gazed at her, bewitched, and felt I should say something. ‘Thanks for having me’ seemed a bit crass. ‘Thank you, your majesty. I’m very happy to be here’ was better, but I seemed to have lost my power of speech.

My three friends swam up beside me and put their arms around me.

“She’s our new bestie!” said Portia, and I relaxed in their embrace.

“Aubrine, could we let Audrey look in your mirror?” Muriel asked, stroking my hair.

“She doesn’t think she’s pretty,” explained Sheila. “Can you imagine such a thing? I mean just look at her, she’s beautiful!”

Aubrine grinned at my friends. “Of course she is, and you three use that mirror all the time. Go show our new mermaid how stunning she is.”

My new friends broke the spell and almost hauled me out of the cave. We swam down a hallway lit by glowing stars placed randomly on the walls and entered a big bedroom with a giant scallop shell for a bed. Above the dressing table was a large mirror. It looked as though it had once hung on a wall in Versailles. I walked over to the bed and noticed there were some small octopuses clinging to its thick, wavy edges. When I reached out to touch one, it grasped my wrist and held on tight. Muriel laughed when she saw me trying to free myself from the tentacles, and she gently stroked the octopus, until it let go of my wrist.

I rubbed my arm, and the mermaids explained that King Marius was fond of restraining his partners while they coupled. The octopuses were there to be used as cuffs.

“Queen Aubrine likes it when he uses the squid flogger on her, but my favorite is a small jelly-fish butt plug!” Portia whispered to me.

I shuddered, but if this beautiful creature next to me and the Madonna in the other cave liked it? Maybe I would, too

Sheila grabbed my hand and drew me across the room to the dressing table, where I stared into the mirror. I turned my head, looking for myself but all I saw was a beautiful stranger staring back at me. She had hair the same deep auburn color as mine, but it was long and silky, the strands waving around her torso in the current that accompanied me everywhere. Her eyes were blue and almond shaped, surrounded by long dark lashes. Her breasts seemed a bit larger than I remembered mine to be, and her waist was slim above her greeny-blue tail. As I studied her face, I realized that when I moved, so did she, and when I made a face, it was mirrored in hers. Itwasme!

Portia stood beside me and smoothed my hair. “This is what everyone has always seen when they look at you. You just couldn’t let yourself believe you were beautiful, so you believed you were plain. Sea mirrors never lie, Audrey.”

Was this really me without my inferiority complex? Holy shit! I’d never thought I was pretty, and Derrick had only confirmed my self-doubt by criticizing my weight, my looks, my choices of clothing.

“Are you really going to wear that?” he’d say, just before we went out to a restaurant or a party. “Maybe you should stick to having a salad today, Aud. You seem to have put on a pound or two recently.” I recalled his voice saying things like that, and it began to affect me... but then I remembered where he was now, and I was willing to bet he wasn’t bossing anyone around anymore.

“See, Audrey? This is what you really look like when you don’t have someone undermining your self-confidence.” Portiacame and stood next to me, putting her arm around my waist. “You’re really beautiful, and, because you’re kind and good, you’ve become a mermaid.”

“Wow,” was all I could say.

We spent the next few hours gossiping and talking about how much fun the other residents of the palace were to have sex with.

“Percy the octopus should be high on your list of partners,” Portia told me. “His tentacles! Oh my god! You won’t believe it!”

“Hmm, not as wonderful as Marcel,”I thought, but I didn’t contradict her.

Chapter

Four

Eventually, my three besties and I left the Royal apartments and swam to a part of the palace I’d never seen before. It was quite modern looking, fashioned of bleached driftwood and black shale with couches and chairs set all around. Several mermaids and a couple of mermen sat in the chairs, and I saw that one of them was dressed as a pirate. He was very handsome – he actually looked a lot like Johnny Depp – but he was scowling. His expression, though it fit the pirate image, didn’t make me want to get to know him.

Portia led me to a couch, and a sea snake glided over and asked if we wanted cocktails.

I was curious as to how one could drink a cocktail underwater, and Sheila told me they came in sealed containers with a special straw that only released the liquid when you sucked on it.

“Yes, Silas, we would all like one, please,” she said.

Our drinks arrived, and I was pleased at how much they tasted like margaritas.

“So, what is this place?” I asked my friends, looking around at the merfolk who were chatting or reading what looked like books. I made a mental note to ask if I could have one of thosebooks to read, but I didn’t understand how they wouldn’t just dissolve under water.

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